After our deposits, we sat in Mrs. Parker’s car with the motor running and ancient music from the eighties blaring from the car stereo. Sara turned deep red and said, “Mom, please!” as her mom snapped her fingers and started singing along to a song she said was a big hit when she was in college.
We tried not to laugh. Sara’s mom had a little bit of an accent and it made the bad singing sound even funnier.
Sara looked like she wanted to hide in the air vent. (Still, it was kind of funny!)
We were waiting for my aunt Tina. Sometimes she’d pick us up either here or at the Parkers’ and take us to breakfast on Saturdays. Her treat, she said, to further the cause of “sisters who’re doing it for themselves!” Aunt Tina was great.
Anyway, the blueness sort of kicked in while we were waiting. Usually, a trip to deposit my ten-dollar-a-week allowance left me feeling excited, filled with plans on what it would be like to own my own business. How I’d be able to help my dad get that new car he’s always wanted. I’d even donate generously to Katy’s homeless animal shelter that she wanted to run someday!
Thanks to saving all of my birthday and Christmas gifts for as long as I could remember, plus earning cash for doing extra chores at home and around the neighborhood over the summer, I had over 500 dollars in the bank! The four of us had already planned how, in a few weeks, when the leaves started falling, we would rake leaves together around our neighborhoods and earn even more money.
Whenever I thought about all that money, I got a little giddy. One day I’d use it to bake the greatest cupcakes and desserts in the world!
But instead of feeling strong, powerful, and green with cash, I was blue.
One reason: I couldn’t stop thinking about the man in Aunt Tina’s column. Grandpa would call that “not being able to see the forest for the trees,” which I think meant somebody was so busy looking at the big thing, they didn’t pay attention to the little things.
Was I forgetting to take care of the little things?
What were my “little things”? I groaned. I was definitely getting a headache, worrying about my friends, my goals, my business, and being president of the whole fifth grade.
But that wasn’t the only reason my head was starting to pound. Becks had a lot to do with it, too!
The whole time we waited for Aunt Tina to roll up in her car, Becks was going on and on about Jasmine Moon.
“She’s so nice, you guys. She really wants to get to know all of us and hang out…”
And…
“I told her about how we’re all saving our money to be millionaires…” and then “Jasmine is sooooo smart and she has a lot of cute clothes…” and then “Jasmine Moon’s dad works for the Pistons and she said he’d get us tickets to the games….”
She just wouldn’t stop talking.
And the way she went on and on about every little Jasmine Moon detail was really starting to bug me.
Not once did she say one thing about my speech on Friday. And she didn’t say anything about our agreement. She was supposed to be spying for me, not the other way around.
Once we got to the restaurant, a diner downtown called Lou’s, we got our usual table. Even Aunt Tina noticed how Becks wouldn’t shut up about Jasmine Moon. But instead of telling her to chill, she said, “Sounds like that girl made quite an impression on you, Miss B.”
Becks nodded, saying, “I just know that no matter what happens in the election, she’ll want to be our friend.”
No matter what happens in the election? What?
“Well, she sounds lovely, but if you think she’d be any match against Brianna over here, well, that’s foolishness!” When she said “foolishness,” she sang it out like opera.
“You are so much like your aunt,” Lauren whispered.
“Baby Girl is smart and a natural-born leader. I know she’ll make an excellent president.” Aunt Tina had been calling me “Baby Girl,” well, since I was a baby.
We all clinked our glasses together, and I was starting to feel a little better, until… Aunt Tina added:
“Just make sure you find a way to make yourself stand out. You’ve got to make sure the voters see you as an individual. Someone they can remember. The one thing that new girl has over you is mystery. People might be intrigued by her because they don’t know her. She might seem somehow mystical. For someone like you, someone who’s been there, the trick is to be bold. Be daring!”
By the time breakfast ended and we were all dropped at our homes, all I could think about was Aunt Tina and what she’d said.
“Be daring!”
What she said was something I’d already been thinking—and worrying—about.
Kids were intrigued by Jasmine Moon and her extra-crinkly black hair. She was a little mysterious. And that made her seem more interesting. Why vote for boring Brianna whom they’d known since forever when they could vote for Mystery?
But the true blueness began when later Saturday afternoon, Katy and I both got yelled at by Mom after we got to yelling at each other because I called her Queen of the Litter Box and then she said, “Don’t count your votes too soon. It takes more than a catchy slogan to win a campaign. It sounds like this Jasmine girl is going to be tough to beat.”
Anyway, like I said, we got yelled at for “acting like brats” and told to “clean up those dirty bedrooms.” Hmph! Okay, so my headquarters—that’s what I called my bedroom—were a little crusty.
Hey, when a girl is planning to take over the world one cupcake recipe at a time, she can forget about the little things.
For the next few hours I scooped laundry, changed bed linens, folded or hung up clothes, and stacked magazines and books in their proper places.
I even dusted the huge poster of Miss Delicious that hung above my desk while I watched her show on television. Her TV kitchen was filled with pinks and reds with little touches of black here and there. Miss Delicious was talking about adding coffee to chocolate as I folded the last of my clean laundry. She was saying, “Coffee draws out the flavor of chocolate. It enhances it so you and your guests can delight in every little bite!”
Could I add coffee to one of my cupcake recipes? Maybe my chocolate frosting? Hmm…
Anyway, right as I was dusting off Pig Pig, our parents announced they were going out to watch Michigan State football with some friends. As soon as they were gone, Katy made her move.
“Shhh,” she whispered. “I’m putting a blue streak in one part of my hair. If you tell Mom and Dad before it’s done, I’ll kill you.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was always threatening to kill me; like I even believed that. But I kept my mouth shut. Goody-goody Katy didn’t often do things that were considered “wrong.” Or “dangerous.” I thought it was cool.
We went into her bathroom and she showed me the bottle. We read the instructions. She wet her hair and we squirted the blue goop into her hand. I said, “You should make the stripe bigger.”
She said, “No!”
When it was time to rinse it out, I said, “You should leave it in longer, just to be sure.”
She said, “No!”
When she finished, she had a blue stripe that was almost as dark as her black hair.
“Told ya!” I said.
“Look, Squirt, I didn’t want it to blaze. It’s okay, right?”
Then she told me to promise once again not to say anything.
“Katy, why’d you do it if you don’t want Mom and Dad to know? You know they’re going to find out, right?”
“Oh, I know. It’s not permanent. They’ll probably have a cow, but, hey, I’m a freshman in high school. I’m in the orchestra. I rescue abandoned pets and volunteer in an animal shelter. None of which puts me in the ‘most popular babe’ category. Every once in a while I need to do something to let everybody know I’m not just some geeky honors student, you know.”
A thought struck me with such force it was like ol’ Ben Franklin outside with his kite in the lightning. ZING!
; Katy wanted to be daring.
Maybe Katy and I had more in common than I thought. I nodded.
Then she said, “Don’t you get tired of people thinking they know everything about you? It’s so, so… predictable. Every once in a while, I like to shake things up!”
Once Katy dried her hair, she got ready to go to the movies with her friends. I was supposed to go across the street to Grandpa’s house, but I told a little fib.
“Grandpa, Katy’s not leaving for another hour. Soon as she does, I’ll be over,” I said.
“Don’t dally, gal. I’ve already picked out some movies on that there rental station on the cable TV. Soon as you make it over, we’ll start watching our shows.”
I told him I’d hurry.
But first I had a plan.
I raced upstairs to Katy’s bathroom and removed the half-empty bottle of Skyrocket Blue gel dye from her shower. Then I went into my shower and went to work. I was going to be bold. I was going to be daring. I was going to be the New Brianna!!!
Forty-five minutes later… man, oh, man, I missed the old Brianna.
Because New Brianna… her butt was in so much trouble.
13
Teddy Roosevelt, First President to Fly in Airplane
(Wish I were flying somewhere with him today!)
“I don’t care what you say, young lady. You’re going to school today, blue hair and all. Maybe that’ll teach you a lesson.”
Katy cut her eyes at me in the backseat. “Serves you right!” she whispered. “Now I’m grounded for a week because you couldn’t mind your own business. Again.”
I whispered, “It’s your fault.”
“How is it my fault?”
“You said this stuff washes out.”
“It washes out eventually. Like after a month or so. Not the next day.”
“But that’s not what you said!”
“Stop it! Both of you are in enough trouble!”
“Mom, please! It wasn’t supposed to get this blue.”
“You should have thought of that…”
My mother continued her lecture and I tried to get lost between the car seat cushions like an unlucky penny.
She pulled to the drop-off loop. “Mommmmmm,” I pleaded.
“Get out, Squirt. She’s going to be late dropping me off.” Katy gave me a shove. I looked at her with her blue streak tucked under her black hair. She was right. If it weren’t for my bright, fat, wide streak of blue hair, Mom and Dad probably wouldn’t have even noticed hers.
Mom wouldn’t even look at me. She was furious. I slumped out of the car, my head hung low. I really didn’t like it when Mom got mad at me.
For just a brief moment, I thought maybe no one would notice. I’d tried to do it better than Katy had, but when I put that goop in my hair it just spread like blue lava.
Now, instead of two shiny black ponytails touching my shoulders, today fat stripes of dark blue rippled through. I slid out of the car, my shoulders hunched. Then, before I could close the door…
“Hey, Brianna, did you dye your hair blue?”
So much for nobody noticing.
By the time I made it to the third floor and Mrs. Nutmeg opened the door to Room 318, I was already tired of trying to explain why I had blue hair.
First, I’d tried to tell the truth. I’d tried to say it was sort of an accident. My sister’s fault.
But everybody kept crowding around. They wanted to touch it, as if blue hair felt different than regular hair.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t want me to get to writing names on the board. So get-to-getting!” said Mrs. Nutmeg, her hand on her hip and her eyebrow pointed upward as she eyed my blue streaks with suspicion. Did she think they were contagious? Like if I touched someone in class by the end of the day the whole class would have a horrible case of blue streaks?
I sat in my seat. Todd kicked my chair and said, “Greetings, freak!”
And I caught Jasmine looking at me as if I might blow up or something.
“Class, let me have your attention. Young ladies and young men, I was proud of all the presentations Friday, but as you know we can have only two representatives per classroom.”
My head dropped to my desk. I felt a reassuring hand stroking my back and knew it belonged to Sara.
“… And the two students who will represent us in the class elections are…”
I closed my eyes. I tried to count to ten.
“Jasmine Moon!” When Mrs. Nutmeg announced Jasmine’s name, my heart crashed into my throat, then took a dive right into my belly.
“… And…”
Now everybody was looking around the room. I swear, I stopped breathing all together. I was concentrating so hard on trying to breathe that I didn’t hear what Mrs. Nutmeg said next.
“You did it!” Sara said, jumping out of her seat to hug me.
I looked up and saw the whole class looking at me. And most everybody was applauding.
I did it. I was an official candidate for fifth-grade president and president of the whole school.
Five minutes later…
We were called down to Principal Beelie’s office. He wanted us to appear on school TV so he could introduce the candidates to the whole school.
Jasmine Moon, with her crinkly dark hair, was on one side and a girl with two long red braids was on the other side. And I was in the middle. Me and my BLUE, BLUE hair.
There were ten of us in all, our faces staring into the camera, me wishing I could magically make my blue hair disappear, as Principal Beelie announced:
“Students of Orchard Park Elementary, allow me to introduce to you the student representatives—your candidates for president!”
We had gone to the front office to be introduced during morning announcements. That meant every class was watching. Every student could see us. See me.
And my hair.
I’d have to do some research the way Mrs. Goth in the media center taught us to see if any of our founding fathers had funny blue hair.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, Dr. Beelie placed his hand on my shoulder and frowned, looking as though he’d swallowed an onion, and said, “Young lady, I don’t know if we’re ready for a president of the fifth grade who has blue hair!”
I groaned. This was my life goal, people. If I didn’t become president of the whole fifth grade, could I ever run my own company, bake cupcakes, and become a millionaire?
14
Ask Not What the Fifth Grade Can Do for You… but What You Can Do for a (Certain Sneaky, Creepy, Weaselly) Fifth Grader!
After several days of washing my hair in the shower every night, the blue streak became less noticeable. Kids at school found other things to gossip about. Life went pretty much back to normal.
Except for all the stuff that was going on with the election.
And what wasn’t going on with me and Becks.
FIVE WEEKS TILL ELECTIONS! Did I mention that I was freaking out?
Becks was still hanging out with Jasmine, “helping” with her campaign. But she hadn’t given me one eensy-teensy bit of inside information.
What kind of spy was she, anyway?
I had all sorts of stuff on my mind when I crashed right into the most wily rodent in all of elementary school:
Raymond Wetzel, otherwise known as Weasel.
“Good day, m’lady!” When Weasel talked, you couldn’t help feeling like he was a villain in some old cartoon. If Weasel were a cartoon drawing, he’d have a long, pointy tail and a skinny mustache.
“What do you want?”
A few kids looked our way, but no one said anything. Weasel was well known for his practical jokes and odd behavior.
“I have something you ought to take a look at,” said Weasel.
Typical Weasel. His eyes slid back and forth like he expected the Secret Service, the guys who guard the real president, to come racing around the corner.
“Weasel, get lost. You’re not even in our class. I’ve
got to get my bike to ride home.” Sara and Lauren were helping with the class pets, as usual. And as usual, at least “usual” for lately, Becks had left with Jasmine Moon and some of her new posse.
I tried pushing past him, but Weasel shoved something into my hand.
An envelope?
I looked at it, frowned, then looked at him.
Weasel had flat, dark eyes and hair the color of dirty pennies. He was always squinting as if the sun was in his eyes even when we were inside the school.
And he was always lurking around.
Everybody believed that’s why all his clothes were brown, black, or gray. It’s easier to skulk around when you’re dressed like a shadow.
“M’lady, it is a matter most urgent!”
“Stop calling me ‘m’lady.’ And STOP BREATHING ON ME!”
He leaned closer. “Shhh! Be warned, m’lady! We must discuss this immediately. It’s about the election.”
“What about the election?”
“You, dear lady, have a Benedict Arnold in your midst. And if you don’t take action immediately, the presidency will be lost!”
ELECTION NOTEBOOK
In the 1960s, this young guy named John F. Kennedy was president.
He said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
If he were alive, President Kennedy would want me to figure out not what being president of the whole fifth grade could do for me, but what I could do for the fifth grade!
I was going to be a good leader; a voice for The People. Just as soon as Becks stopped acting like everything Jasmine Moon said was a poem and started spying for me like she was supposed to!
15
The Real Benedict Arnold!
I led Weasel back to Mrs. Nutmeg’s room. That quote she’d written on the bulletin board said it all:
“I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery.”—Aeschylus
Someone I trusted was being a traitor. And that was a betrayal of the highest order!
President of the Whole Fifth Grade Page 5
